Did you hear that the United States will be raising the drinking age to 25 this August? Well, you heard wrong. The news story floating around the internet today is actually a hoax.

The story first appeared on a website made to look like ABC News.

The story reads: “As of August 2, 2014 legal age to drink will be 25. There has been controversy whether 21 is too young to make decisions. A lot of citizens state at that age they are not mentally responsible to drink. So the legislation at the White House has come to an agreement to have legal age changed to 25.”

I refuse to believe the drinking age is changing to 25 that’s blasphemy

if the legal drinking age gets pushed to 25 this year, I’m fleeing the country. I want no part of America no more. — matos (@itsjust_karina) June 17, 2014

The story was created by the Sunday Times Daily, a website that allows users to create fake news stories. The stories are then published on fake websites that look like real news sources (NY Times, ABC News, Etc…).

The Sunday Times Daily is one of several news hoax websites. The biggest difference with this site tells you that the story is a joke when you are done reading.

That’s probably why it gets shared so much. At the time of this writing, close to 2 million people fell for the drinking age to 25 hoax.

Author: Dan Evon

Dan Evon was born, raised, and currently lives in Chicago. He is the Editor-In-Chief at Social News Daily. Over the last six years Evon has helped build several web platforms to millions of monthly readers. Dan is an expert is social media platform building and a freelance content consultant specializing in trending, evergreen and news content.